Indigo had a tiring night, and it wasn’t only because of the influx of customers that came in and didn’t leave until closing time, which came to around four in the morning and not any sooner. It was also because while she was already busy moving her hands and feet about, her mind was also busy on a different matter—namely, Dean and his sudden exit, as if there was something so pressing that he had to abandon her when it was obvious all he wanted in the beginning was to make sure she got her so-called punishment.
Whatever. She was going to be grateful for the time she was given to plan, as well as brood over the guy’s rudeness. He acted as if he owned the world and expected everyone to bow at his feet.
Unfortunately for him, Indigo refused to do that.
She stayed behind, monitoring her employees clean up and heading to her office once they finished. She did the inventory for the week, satisfied when her sales had doubled and she had more savings to open up another bar soon—where, she still needed to decide. But a ticking started in her head, and it wasn’t until she slipped out of the office and heard the knock on the back door of the bar that she realized she’d just been waiting for the lion shifter to come back.
She took a deep breath, her plea already prepared, along with a bargain to let Dean keep her two bars and a promise that she wouldn’t cause any harm. She opened the door.
All bargains left her head at the sight that greeted her.
It was Dean alright—except he wasn’t the clean, glossy Dean she knew…and he wasn’t wearing anything at all. His lower portion was covered by whatever he was holding, and it took Indigo a few seconds to realize what they were: animal hides and a small bag of diamonds. Human world diamonds.
Shifter hides.
It took her a few more seconds to realize he was covered in blood.
He staggered inside, something she’d never seen him do in all their interactions. Shock filled her as she scrutinized him and saw that he had multiple slashes all over his body, indicating that sharp objects sliced at him and had been relentless about it. He dripped blood all over her floor, but that was the least of her concerns as she eyed the wound on the side of his stomach, which was gaping open.
“Dean?” The words were croaked out as her throat almost didn’t work, but she cleared it. “What happened to you?”
“I need a place to stay. Hide.”
“Hide?”
“Yes. Gallery too far.”
“Your gallery?”
“Yes. Take me…market…hide…” The words slurred and stumbled all over each other, and alarm spread through Indigo as she realized he wasn’t going to last long. He swayed in his spot, tossing the hides at her and giving her only a second to catch the heavy weight of them in her hands.
Then he was closing his eyes and dropping to the ground, and she only had a split second to drop the hides and catch him instead.
They both crashed to the floor, his weight on top of hers as she fell on her butt in a sitting position. Her head smacked on the wall behind her, and she gritted her head as pain radiated. But it was forgotten quickly as she looked down, careful to handle the unconscious man.
Wait, no. He opened his eyes again.
“Can you still stand up?” she asked.
“Why?”
Leave it to him to ask. She stifled the urge to roll her eyes. “Because you’re too heavy and we need to get to the marketplace. I can’t heal you here.”
“Fine.”
Dean gritted his teeth. She gritted hers as well as she placed his arm around her shoulder, then powered through as she stood up and practically carried him all the way. The weight was lifted off her a bit when he stood on his own two feet and kept blinking to keep himself alert. He even had enough strength to order her that the hides needed to be kept safe, and she grumbled at him to shut up as she helped him take one step at a time towards the back alley, then walked some more to more alleys. When they were in the area where she opened portals, she had him lean against a wall.
There were only a few creatures in the world who could open portals, and that included shifters and witches. Witches, in particular, were better at it since they could open portals at their leisure, so long as they picked a permanent spot.
At least, the witches who knew about the human world.
Since she was just a half-witch, it took her twice the usual effort to do so as she closed her eyes and gathered the energy inside her as she imagined a door in front of her. Seconds later, that door appeared in the form of a gleam. She glanced in Dean’s direction, prepared to be defensive about it.
Dean’s glazed eyes were unfocused, and alarm slid through again as she realized he was about to lose consciousness for real now.
She hurried it up, assisting him as they stepped through together and arrived on the other end—another alley, the one across her bar in the marketplace. She looked around and found herself faced with the dead of night, thankful for that as they crossed the street and entered her now-empty bar from the back. None of the supernatural employees she had were here anymore, leaving for an empty, clean space.
“We just need to get upstairs—”
Indigo didn’t get to finish her words as this time, Dean’s weight went down again and brought her along with him. They both crashed to the floor, him sprawled on his back and her sprawled on top of his thighs—his naked thighs. She closed her eyes and sprinted up as fast as she could, not wanting to see anything down there at all. She watched his gaping wound bleed profusely again before she looked up.
Golden eyes met hers, stilling her.
“Help me,” he croaked.
Then he closed his eyes.
Indigo frowned, the dread in her stomach increasing as she realized she had no choice in the matter.
She certainly didn’t want a famous lion shifter dead on her hands.
*****
Healing him involved a lot of things: herbal medicine, some of the potions she had hidden upstairs in her room, and some good old spells that she read from the book her father left behind. The combination of those three helped seal Dean’s wounds in a slow, painstaking manner, making her sweat and shiver throughout the whole process. She’d never done major healing before, and she realized that it wasn’t a good idea at all.
By the time she was done, all her energy was spent. Indigo crawled over his body, satisfied with her job well done.
Then she crashed into a deep sleep right there on the floor with him.
She woke up an hour or two later, still drained of magic but with enough energy to stand up. She used that energy to drag Dean upstairs, where she placed him on her bed and cleaned his body up, keeping everything as clinical as possible.
There were more things to take care of, and she got to them right away, knowing time was running out. She needed to get it all done before her employees came back and found all this mess.
She went back to her SoHo bar and cleaned it all up: the blood, the sweat, anything that would point to evidence of Dean being there. She took the hides back to the marketplace, keeping it with her potions until further notice. She cleaned up her marketplace bar until it was spotless, even cleaned the streets they passed for any drop of blood or footprints. By the time she was done, she was so exhausted that she felt like she was on the verge of dropping dead. Because his sleeping form filled up the space of the bed, she had no choice but to stay on the floor. It didn’t matter.
She was asleep in seconds.
When Indigo woke up again, she was disoriented and still tired, but thankfully filled with energy once more, like a battery charging. She stretched her arms up, working out her kinks and trying to get her bleary mind to work.
“Your lips are pink.”
The shock of the male, familiar voice was unreal, and horror filled her at the thought that she slept with him. But that horror was replaced by another kind of horror as memories of last night rushed back, and she was sitting up before she knew it.
Then she was staring at her spot on the bed, then his spot on the floor.
Dean was lying down with a blanket over his lower half and his upper half completely bare. She hadn’t really had time to look at it casually last night, so she did so now and found herself impressed.
Yes, his shoulders were broad, but it wasn’t just that. They were also corded with muscles, bigger than she was used to seeing. This undressed Dean took her breath away because he looked so male and primitive, so much closer to his real nature than the preppy Dean could ever be. His chest looked hard, and so did his stomach—ridges of abs with wisps of golden hair just below the navel, trailing down to something bulging under the blanket…
Indigo blinked when she realized she was staring at morning wood—a huge morning wood, shocking her to her core. Her eyes snapped up, where she found Dean observing her quietly. Shaken, she wrapped her own blankets tighter around her. She remembered his earlier statement about her lips and tried not to get embarrassed by it.
“How long since…you switched our places?”
Dean shrugged, moving up so his head would fit better on his array of pillows. The movement corded the veins in his muscles all the more, and she swallowed. She’d had men—enjoyed men and sex, though the last interaction she had was probably almost a year ago. But Dean was physically above all the men she’d ever been with, and some part of her wondered what it would be like…
“A few hours ago. I already took too much of the bed, and you’re a lady.”
Indigo’s mind went back to the present, and she smirked. “I’m the last person you should be calling a lady.”
“So you’re not a woman?”
“Oh, I’m all woman. Just not a lady.”
She glanced at the time, noting down that it wasn’t even past ten in the morning. She stretched out her arms again.
“Thank you for saving my life.”
“I didn’t save it,” she muttered. “I doubt you’d have died that easily.”
“Why not?”
She gave him a bland stare. “Assholes don’t die so easily.”
He grimaced and kept staring at her. “You’re not going to die so easily, then.”
The jab was so unexpected that she found herself grinning. His eyes were still focused on her lips, and that bothered her so much that she turned around and faced the wall.
“Go back to sleep,” she muttered. “And don’t you dare move yet. My spell needs time to stitch you back together, and I’m not about to waste my energy redoing it.”
“Okay. You’re pretty.”
“And that’s still the spell talking,” she said. “Don’t regret it when we wake up.”
“I won’t. And I want us to discuss some things when we wake up. I’m letting your little mishap of an illegal bar go if you team up with me.”
“That’s still the spell talking.”
“No, it’s not,” he promised. “Work for me. Then we’ll call it even.”
“After I saved your life?”
“You didn’t save my life, remember? Assholes don’t die so easily.”
God. He was such an argumentative bastard.
Indigo yawned, not ready to deal with it yet. She sighed, knowing her bar downstairs was already up and running even without her. She also knew Dean meant what he said about her bars, though she didn’t know why she knew that. She just knew. Dean might be an asshole, but he was a shifter—and shifters were all about that mighty honor they always held on to.
A question came to mind.
“Who tried to harm you?”
“Lion shifters,” he murmured.
Oh. Well. It looked like not all shifters were all about honor, after all.
“Where are the hides, Indigo?”
“Safe.”
“Thank you.”
“Stop thanking me already. You’re freaking me out.”
“Alright.”
All the thinking giving her a headache, she closed her eyes.
And Indigo let sleep take her again.